Exhausting efforts make the best art

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—This immense tribute to stationary stores and pencil cases everywhere was revealed this past January at the Toronto Interior Design Show, filling an entire wall with nothing but colour.

The nice folks down at blackLAB Architects encourage their work by slinging the slogan “Get excited about design”,however, there isn’t much incentive on how excited one should get. Hearing the ice cream truck on a hot summer day excited, or finding money in your jacket from last winter excited? Or maybe hearing Niggas In Paris on your iTunes excited? After staring at this installation for a few minutes, refreshing the page, and staring again, I realize that the level of excitement needed to appreciate this is that of naïve, childlike wonderment, pushing your eyelids back as far as they can go and dropping your mouth open. In its earnest simplicity, the immensity of this piece with the fervent trigger of colour allows for the stimulation of our primal sense of fascination without the need for scrutiny or reason. I mean, look at all the colours! I will give them credit for actually sitting down and pressing pencil crayons into a pegboard. I guess it makes up for not being able to doodle on the walls as a kid.

Sci-fi writer Philip K. Dick termed the endless clutter that builds up in the course of our lives as “kipple.” This word perfectly describes the art installation that Dan Tobin Smith has meticulously assembled to bring to life the nightmare of every mother that is raising a teen in North America.

Using a total of 1200 cans of spray paint, graffiti duo Os Gemeos decorated Team Brazil’s Boeing 737 just in time for the 2014 World Cup.Using a total of 1200 cans of spray paint, graffiti duo Os Gemeos decorated Team Brazil’s Boeing 737 just in time for the 2014 World Cup.